


We've Got To Let Go Of All Of Our Ghosts

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [27]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-11-29 01:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20953994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: The Doctor receives a summons to Stormcage, and realises that she can no longer avoid an extremely pressing conversation with her wife.





	We've Got To Let Go Of All Of Our Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> From professorsaber's prompt:
> 
> _For "Take Me To The Stars": River finds out Thirteen and Clara are getting married???_

There’s a brief, almost-imperceptible flicker in the air of River’s cell, and then, sat upon the bed is a Time Lady; a Time Lady who had definitely not been there the second before. 

“You could’ve just called,” River notes with a raised eyebrow, affixing her wife with a bemused expression that lasts for little more than a second, before she breaks into a mischievous smirk. “I’m sure the guards will be just thrilled to know I have company. Aren’t you on a lifetime ban after last time’s… escapades?” 

Her mouth twists into an even more suggestive smirk, and the Doctor’s cheeks flush scarlet at the mere memory of what had occurred in this very cell, the last time she had paid her wife a visit. 

“I see lifetime bans as a challenge,” she manages after a long moment of composing herself. “Not as something that’s legally binding, and besides, what constitutes a lifetime in my case? Because I count it as a face-time ban, and that was _two_ faces ago. So, realistically, I’m not flouting any rules by being here. And even if I was, they wouldn’t notice anyway, because I’ve done a basic Time Stop on your cell. Parlour trick, really, but terribly useful in a situation like this.”

“A situation like what?”

“Well, this didn’t feel like the sort of conversation we should be having over the phone, River,” the Doctor raises her own eyebrow in silent response to River’s own arched brow, reaching into her pocket and retrieving the psychic paper. Flipping it open, she reveals the words _‘you’re doing **what?!?!?!?!**” _scrawled in lurid red lipstick, and River’s smug expression only intensifies. 

“Oh, I didn’t know it did fonts,” River says with glee, taking the paper and examining it more closely. “It’s captured my handwriting rather well, hasn’t it? Even got the colour of my lipstick right.”

“Stop avoiding the subject.” 

“No, that’s usually your forte, isn’t it?” River says, and her tone is not without a hint of bitterness. “You’re usually one to dance around the topic, and you’re certainly doing so now. So, let’s get right to the point, shall we? When were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” 

“Don’t play innocent with me,” River snaps, and the harshness of her tone takes them both by surprise. When she speaks again, she pitches her voice to a gentler note for which the Doctor is grateful: “You know exactly what I mean, and who. You’re marrying Clara?”

“Ah,” the Doctor says evasively, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Yes, urm… about that…”

“What about that?” River asks pointedly, folding her arms and refusing to back down. “What, exactly, about that? Would an apology be forthcoming?”

“What am I apologising for?!”

“Well,” River settles back in the hard, uncomfortable chair that the prison have so thoughtfully deigned to provide her. She feels a pang of longing for the comfortable leather chair she had commandeered in the TARDIS study. “Where would you like to start? The fact that I had to hear it from _Jim the Fish_?” 

“Oh,” the Doctor winces, and, to her credit, appears genuinely contrite. “Urm, sorry. I meant to drop you a message, I just… I wasn’t sure if the prison were screening your post and I didn’t want the guards to have any reason to gloat.” 

“Yes, because I’m entirely incapable of commanding respect from my guards,” River shoots back. “I mean, that chap whose testicles I nearly ripped off for telling me I have nice tits; I’m sure he’d testify what an absolute soft-touch I am. I’d really put up with so much shit from them about my marriage.” 

“I wasn’t sure how you’d take the news,” the Doctor says miserably. “In general.”

“Well, sweetie, let’s try having that discussion and we can find out.” 

“I…”

“Sweetie,” River says seriously, rising from her chair and moving to sit beside the Doctor. There’s mere millimetres between them; their legs side by side on the narrow mattress, and yet somehow it’s not enough, so River reaches over and takes her wife’s hand in both of her own, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I just need you to be honest with me.” 

“I can do that,” the Doctor murmurs, clenching the hand that River isn’t cradling into a loose fist, before flexing the fingers out in a silent stretch, repeating the motion a few times as she gathers her thoughts. “What do you need to know? Where do you want me to begin?” 

“Firstly, I want you to know that it hurt me-” 

The Doctor winces as though she’s been hit, and River lifts her wife’s hand to her mouth and presses a kiss to it at once.

“I’m sorry, my love, but it did. It was… not a shock, because I could see how you felt about her, but it was… I don’t know,” she sighs, extricating one hand and pushing her hair back off her face. “I would’ve liked to discuss it with me first. I would’ve liked you to maybe… I don’t know, not ask my permission exactly, because I don’t own you and you don’t own me, but it would’ve been nice to know what you were thinking of doing so that I didn’t hear it from Jim the Fish.” 

“I-”

“Hold on,” River warns, holding up one hand. “Hearing it from someone we both know so well was a real slap in the face. I had to nod and smile and pretend that I knew, but all I really wanted to do was scream. I know how you feel about Clara. God knows, I think even a blind person could perceive how much you mean to each other; it was inevitable that at some point you wanted to get things put in writing – although I’m not sure why; it’s not like you hold much stock in such things.” 

“The symbolism of such things holds weight with me,” the Doctor says quickly, before River can chastise her for interrupting. “You know that. You knew that when I married you.” 

“I suppose,” River acquiesces, feeling abruptly awkward. “I-” 

“No, don’t suppose,” the Doctor says in a low, stern voice, and River finds herself taken aback by the sudden seriousness in her wife’s tone. “Those things mean something to me. Making a promise in front of witnesses means something to me. Not just promises to you, or to Clara, or to my friends; promises to anyone mean something to me. My word is my vow.”

“I’m sorry,” River says sincerely, and she realises she is. Her flippant tone has struck a nerve she hadn’t intended to strike, and she reiterates: “I’m sorry, I know it is. It just… to learn of this how I did? That hurt me.” 

“I’m sorry you had to learn about it like that. I should’ve told you. I should’ve come straight here. But the proposal was… unplanned. It was spontaneous, because I never anticipated marriage being something I did again.”

“Did I leave you so jaded?” River teases lightly, and the Doctor smiles for half a second before her expression drops back into one of great worry. “No, really, why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” the Time Lady shrugs. “I just… didn’t feel like it. After I… after we… after you…” she gestures vaguely, and they both know to what she’s alluding. It might be River’s future, but it’s the Doctor’s past, and River can see how it weighs on her wife. “I just couldn’t see any future where I loved anyone else so intensely.” 

“And yet you _do_ love so intensely,” River reminds her, nudging the Time Lady’s knee with her own. “And are loved in return.” 

“I am, and I do.” 

“But this did surprise me a little, though. Most of your past wives have been…” she can’t help her mouth from quirking up into a semi-cruel smile. “Fleeting figures. Cleopatra-” 

“That was you in a wig, and therefore doesn’t count.” 

“-Elizabeth the First-”

“That was part of me doing undercover espionage to bring down a Zygon plot.” 

“-Marilyn Monroe?” 

“Alright, that one was just the influence of plain old alcohol.”

“So, what excuse are you giving for Clara?” River raises an eyebrow in a silent challenge, and the Doctor’s expression becomes a mask of fury. 

“I… how… how dare you even say that? How can you say that I’d find an excuse; how can you think she means so little to me that I’d be using her as a means to an end? You know how I feel about her; you know what she means to me and what she sacrificed for me. You know that she’s died for me a thousand times over; died for this universe a thousand times over; and if anything, _you_ facilitated that. You were there on Trenzalore when she made that sacrifice, and you know that I tried to stop her. You know that her decision was made of love; that she loved me at a time when I considered myself entirely unlovable. She saved me, need I remind you?! She saved me after I lost your parents, and she’s saved me in a thousand ways since. How could I not love someone who was so utterly and intrinsically in love with me that she would die for me countless times over? You might be my bespoke psychopath but she’s my bespoke saviour, and I love her with both of my hearts in the same way that I love you, and one does not negate the other. She knows that, and I hoped that you would too; clearly I was wrong,” the Doctor is panting like she’s run a race by the time she’s finished, on her feet and scowling down at River with an expression of righteous fury. “How dare you even make that accusation of me?” 

“I dare I because that’s what I needed to be sure of,” River says quietly. “I needed to be absolutely sure that she was entirely adored by you, my love, because I know how it feels to be loved by you, and I know that even with the full force of your adulation, it can sometimes be lonely to be loved by the so-called Last of the Time Lords.” 

“I’m not the-” 

River affixes her with a maddening, unreadable expression, then continues: “There’s no doubt that you love her in the same way she loves you. I could see that in her, even on Trenzalore; I could see that she adored you with every fibre of her being. And if you feel the same – which I can see now that you do – then I want you to love her for every moment of every day, because to be loved by you is one of the highest honours of my life. To be loved by you is like-”

“Being loved by the sunset?” the Doctor teases, and River snorts, her sentimentality knocked by the sudden, teasing reference to their shared past. 

“Something like that, yes,” she says fondly. “So, love her well. Love her fiercely. And come and see me at least once a year. That’s all I ask from you; one day a year.” 

“Which year-length would you like me to use?” the Doctor deadpans, then yelps as River punches her lightly in the shoulder. “Hey! It’ll be more often than once a year, don’t you worry.”

“For Rassilon’s…” River rolls her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t come more often than that, I’m not being named as the guilty party in your divorce papers. Just… you know, think of me from time to time. Check in. Come and say hello. We have a lot to talk about now you’re all womanly like me, remember? And a lot to _do, _sweetie.”

“I will,” the Doctor promises, reaching for River’s hands and giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Alright? I’ll come and see you when I can. I love you.”

“I…” River blinks at her. 

“What?” 

“It’s nice hearing that,” River says warmly, blinking back tears. “It’s still… the novelty… it doesn’t quite wear off.”

“Well,” the Doctor smiles. “I love you, River.” 

“I love you. Go on, go home. Your fiancée will be missing you.” 

“I…” 

“Send my love to her, alright?” 

“I will.” 

“And send me a photo from the big day.” 

“We will. If not an invite, if we can wrangle a way to get you out of here, and that wouldn’t be too weird.” 

“We’ll see. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do on your hen do,” River warns teasingly. “And remember…” 

“Yes?” 

“I really do love you.”

The Doctor smiles for a final time, then flickers and fades out of existence again. A guard strides past her cell, and once he’s passed, River leans against the wall and lets out a long sigh, dabbing her eyes with the heel of her hand.

* * *

“How did she take it?” Clara asks quietly, setting a mug of tea down beside the Doctor in the library.

“Well, I think,” the Doctor looks up at her fiancée with a tentative smile. “She wanted to… she wanted to be absolutely sure how much I care about you.” 

“Of course she did,” Clara nods sagely. “I think at this point… it’s quite obvious though. Those four and a half billion years, remember?”

“I do,” the Doctor takes Clara’s hand and squeezes it. “I love you. And she… she sends her love too.” 

“I love you too,” Clara smiles. “And I’m glad.”


End file.
